Good Books On Adoption

Adoption is a high calling from God, and the Christian home primary soil for planting seeds of faith. But how will post-adoption challenges affect this growth? Most agencies do a great job of connecting families with children who need a forever family. Not many prepare you for the unexpected issues—an adopted child fighting with his new siblings or not wanting to be touched or showing signs of reactive attachment disorder (RAD). The more you know, the more confident you will be to meet the unique needs of your adopted child and your entire family. This distinctly Christian book will equip readers to be successful adoptive parents. Packed from cover to cover with information, advice, ideas, and resources, Handbook on Thriving as an Adoptive Family will inspire and inform parents committed to making adoption work. Handbook on Thriving as an Adoptive Family is the one parenting resource that provides comprehensive, topical, Bible-based solutions for the inevitable challenges after adoption.

The adoption of a child is always a joyous moment in the life of a family. Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion.

Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, The Connected Child will help you:

Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child

Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders

Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened

Attaching in Adoption is a comprehensive guide for prospective and actual adoptive parents on how to understand and care for their adopted child and promote healthy attachment. This classic text provides practical parenting strategies designed to enhance children's happiness and emotional health. It explains what attachment is, how grief and trauma can affect children's emotional development, and how to improve attachment, respect, cooperation and trust. Parenting techniques are matched to children's emotional needs and stages, and checklists are included to help parents assess how their child is doing at each developmental stage. The book covers a wide range of issues including international adoption, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and learning disabilities, and combines sound theory and direct advice with case examples throughout. This book is a must read for anyone interested in adoption and for all adoptive families. It will also be a valuable resource for adoption professionals.

The world is full of hurt children, and bringing one into your home can quickly derail the easy family life you once knew. Get effective suggestions, wisdom, and advice to parent the hurt child in your life. The best hope for tragedy prevention is knowledge! Updated and revised.

"I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family."

"When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me."

"I am afraid you will abandon me."

The voices of adopted children are poignant, questioning. And they tell a familiar story of loss, fear, and hope. This extraordinary book, written by a woman who was adopted herself, gives voice to children's unspoken concerns, and shows adoptive parents how to free their kids from feelings of fear, abandonment, and shame.

With warmth and candor, Sherrie Eldridge reveals the twenty complex emotional issues you must understand to nurture the child you love--that he must grieve his loss now if he is to receive love fully in the future--that she needs honest information about her birth family no matter how painful the details may be--and that although he may choose to search for his birth family, he will always rely on you to be his parents.

Filled with powerful insights from children, parents, and experts in the field, plus practical strategies and case histories that will ring true for every adoptive family, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew is an invaluable guide to the complex emotions that take up residence within the heart of the adopted child--and within the adoptive home.

Current wisdom holds that adoptive parents should talk with their child about adoption as early as possible. But no guidelines exist to prepare parents for the various ways their children might respond when these conversations take place. In this wise and sympathetic book, a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist, both adoptive mothers, discuss how young children make sense of the fact that they are adopted, how it might appear in their play, and what worries they and their parents may have. Accounts by twenty adoptive parents of conversations about adoption with their children, from ages two to ten, graphically convey what the process of sharing about adoption is like.

Choco was a little bird who lived all alone. He wished he had a mother, but who could his mother be? "Just right for the preschool group or beginning reader."--Kirkus Reviews, pointer review. "Young listeners will be charmed by the book's humor, warmth, and surprise ending."--Horn Book. Full color. Age 3-6.

When it first released in September 2010, Choosing to See stormed onto bestseller lists in every market, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Cba. With appearances on media from Focus on the Family to Fox and Friends to Good Morning America, Mary Beth shared her touching story to critical acclaim.

Mary Beth's story is our story--wondering where God is when the worst happens. In Choosing to See, readers will hear firsthand about the loss of her daughter, the struggle to heal, and the unexpected path God has placed her on.

This groundbreaking book speaks in simple straight-forward language to any child who is growing up in an environment where she/he feels different. Filled with wonderful pictures, this book will speak to any child trying to find herself reflected in the people and things around her. Brown Like Me affirms a strong and positive self-image.

Thus begins this beautiful story for adoptive families. I Wished for You: An Adoption Story follows a conversation between a little bear named Barley and his Mama as they curl up in their favorite cuddle spot and talk about how they became a family. Barley asks Mama the kinds of questions many adopted children have, and Mama lovingly answers them all.

With endearing prose and charming watercolor illustrations, I Wished for You is a cozy read that affirms how love is what truly makes a family.

This is a story of a mother with an unfulfilled heart longing to love a child. The only way she knew to have a complete family was through prayer and faith. So she waited and believed, and seasons changed while she prayed "like crazy" and one day, she believed God would bring a Little Fox for her to love. Finally, her prayers and dreams come true, and Little Fox comes into her life. It is a story he loves to hear over and over…the day he came home. And so, Mama Fox explains to Little Fox how lonely she was before God brought him for her to love. She tells him how she waited and prayed for him, how he would look, and how he would smell. This is a charming story about adoption, when faith and hope are given free reign and the timing is given to God, whose timing is always perfect. The illustrations are perfect for this book: reflecting Ms. Bryant's talents with the detail. Adding to the frivolity of the book is the typeface used on the pages.

Sam has a joyful story to tell, one completely her own, yet common to millions of families -- the story of how she was adopted. Most of all, it's a story about love. And in the end, Sam's story comes full circle, inviting young readers to share stories of how they were adopted.

Family connections are vitally important to children as they begin to find their place in the world. For transracial and transcultural adoptees, domestic adoptees, and for children in foster care or kinship placements, celebrating the differences within their families as well as the similarities that connect them, is the foundation for belonging. As parents or caregivers, we can strengthen our children’s tie to family and embrace the differences that make them unique. Each child will have their own story and their own special place to belong.

This beautifully illustrated and uplifting book, for the 2-5 set, will help to create the intimate parent/caregiver and child bond that is so important. While others may notice the physical differences between us on the outside, inside we are the same.